European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003

22.—(1) This regulation applies to the transmission of unsolicited communications by means of electronic mail to individual subscribers.
(2) Except in the circumstances referred to in paragraph (3), a person shall neither transmit, nor instigate the transmission of, unsolicited communications for the purposes of direct marketing by means of electronic mail unless the recipient of the electronic mail has previously notified the sender that he consents for the time being to such communications being sent by, or at the instigation of, the sender.
(3) A person may send or instigate the sending of electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing where—
(a) that person has obtained the contact details of the recipient of that electronic mail in the course of the sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient;
(b) the direct marketing is in respect of that person’s similar products and services only; and
(c) the recipient has been given a simple means of refusing (free of charge except for the costs of the transmission of the refusal) the use of his contact details for the purposes of such direct marketing, at the time that the details were initially collected, and, where he did not initially refuse the use of the details, at the time of each subsequent communication.
(4) A subscriber shall not permit his line to be used in contravention of paragraph (2).

It is worth noting that the legislation is aimed at protecting individuals. Because the Email Marketing Robot is designed to target businesses this particular legislation does not apply, however we recommend that if unsubscribe requests are received by recipients that you add the email address to the Email Blacklist by clicking Blacklists > Email Blacklist and pasting in the email address to prevent any further contact.

United States CAN-SPAM Act

In the United States and Canada consumers are protected from unsolicited advertising emails under the CAN-SPAM Act.

The act covers all emails that are of a commercial nature. This includes emails that promotes products, services, or links to websites.

Here are the guidelines of the CAN-SPAM Act:

Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.

Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.

Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.

Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.

Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.

Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.

The Email Marketing Robot is designed to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. It is legal to contact websites via the email address published on their website for the purpose of making an enquiry. You should ensure that your emails are enquiries and not commercial in content.

Also we recommend that you run the Email Marketing Robot with the option “If no email is found, use defaults” UNTICKED in Settings. This will ensure that the robot does not contact websites who do not wish to be contacted.

You should honour all unsubscribe requests promptly by adding the email address to the list in Blacklists > Email blacklist. This will ensure that the robot will not contact the same email address in the future.

Disclaimer

This information is for guidance and should not be considered as legal advice. If in doubt please contact a qualified lawyer. The creators of the Email Marketing Robot, Android Marketing Ltd provide the software for legitimate use only and cannot take any responsibility for the content or legality of messages delivered by customers.